The resumption of building, 1841

Yet despite this gratifying improvement in the
social tone of the place, the Hippodrome evidently
still did not pay, and in October 1840 Whyte
assigned his twenty-one-year interest to his
solicitor, Duncan, subject to a mortgage for
£8,2000 to William Chadwick, the builder who
had crected the fences and stables for Whyte.
The heavy clay soil had proved unsuitable for
racing, building in the environs of London was
on the upsurge again, and speculators were beginning
to look with interest at the land to the
east of the Hippodrome, nearest to London. One
of these was Jacob Connop, a bill broker in the
City of London, who also acted as a commission
agent, dealer and chapman, and to whom Duncan
had at once assigned his twenty-one-year interest
in the land on longer used as part of the racecourse. (fn. 7).
In October 1840 Connop and James
Weller Ladbroke signed an agreement whereby
Ladbroke undertook, subject to various covenants,
to grant Connop ninety-nine-year leases of the
land between the Hippodrome and Portobello
Lane, comprising some fifty-eight acres; and in
February 1841 Ladbroke signed a similar agreement
with Duncan, the solicitor, for the granting
of long leases of the seventy-seven acres of his
land which were then still occupied by the
Hippodrome (fn. 8) (fig. 46).

Connop and Duncan were business associates,
Connop as a bill broker having endorsed bills of
exchange for the accommodation of Duncan, (fn. 9)
and the whole project was probably a joint one,
involving the risky combination of racing and
building speculation. Connop was evidently to be
the dominant partner, for in March 1841 he
announced himself to a party of visiting journalists
as the new proprietor of the Hippodrome. In the
west he was assembling a stud of twenty racehorses
to compete at the Hippodrome, which would
vie with any course in the Kingdom; while to the
east a new town 'or series of Italian villages, with
an elegant church' was to arise. With twelve
days' racing every year, he estimated that the
annual revenue would be £15,000, half of which
he would use 'to aid the sports of the succeeding
year'. (fn. 10)

Figure 46:

The lands of John Duncan and Jacob Connop on
the Ladbroke estate. Broken line denotes The future course
of Ladbroke Grove. Redrawn from a plan of c. 1841 in
G.L.R.O.(L)

These dreams proved short-lived, for the last
race at the Hippodrome took place only three
months later, on 4 June 1841, (fn. 11) and it was during
the ensuing six or seven hectic years that much of
the Ladbroke estate assumed its modern aspect.
By the two separate agreements signed with
Connop and Duncan, Ladbroke had divided most
of his undeveloped property into two parts, and
the subsequent history of these two speculations
demonstrates that the original undertakers of a
large building project often failed, and that success
depended largely upon the business capacity of
each individual developer, and upon the financial
resources which he could command. For both
Connop and Duncan the results were disastrous. The successful development of Connop's lands
was postponed for a decade or more, despite the
fact that his lands were nearer to London and
therefore more likely to prove 'ripe' for building,
whereas on Duncan's more westerly lands,
Duncan's partner, Richard Roy, was able to
organize a dramatic surge of building whose
momentum was only halted by the financial
crisis of 1847.

In 1826 Connop had taken the benefit of the
Insolvent Debtors' Act, and in 1830 he had been
declared bandkrupt. In addition to 'discounting
Bills of Exchange and receiving a commission on
such transactions' he also dabbled in patent rights
and searching for gold in Australia. (fn. 12) Despite these
risky activities Ladbroke evidently considered him
to be a suitable person to whom to entrust the
development of a large part of the estate. By the
agreement of 5 October 1840 Connop covernanted
that by Christmas 1841 he would spend £2,000
on the building of such roads and sewers as
Ladbroke's surveyor (Allason) might approve,
and that by Michaelmas 1842 he would spend
£5,000 on the building of two or more houses.
During the first twenty years of the ninety-nine-year
term he undertook to spend the enormous
sum of £100,000 on the building of not less than
40 or more than 350 houses, half of which were
to be of at least £1,000 in value, and none less
than £500. The ground rent during the first year
was to be £313, rising to £1,045 in the sixth and
all succeeding years, this last figure being equivalent
to £18 per acre.

Duncan's agreement contained very similar
provisions. He covenanted to spend £80,000 within
sixteen years on the building of between 32
and 250 houses, and to pay a ground rent of £405
in the first year, rising to £1,350 in the seventh
and succeeding years (equivalent to £17 10s per
acre). Either alone or in conjunction with Connop
he was also to spend £2,000 on roads and
sewers. (fn. 8)

Duncan's career as a speculator on the Ladbroke
estate was even shorter than Connop's, and
extended over little more than two years. He was
a partner in the firm of Roy, Blunt, Duncan and
Johnstone, solicitors, of Great George Street,
Westminster, and Lothbury in the City, whose
clients included several railway and insurance
companies. He had been drawn into the Ladbroke
estate through his client John Whyte, the original
promoter of the Hippodrome, whose financial
difficulties had prompted Duncan to take over
Whyte's interest in the racecourse in October
1840, and (as has already been stated) on the very
next day he had assigned his interest in the eastern
half to Connop.

In order to raise capital for the fulfilment of
his obligation to Ladbroke, Duncan borrowed
£6,000 from the London and Westminster Bank
(for which Roy, Blunt, Duncan and Johnstone
acted as solicitors) upon the security of promissory
notes repayable within six months. By an arrangement
which he made with his partner, Richard
Roy, repayment of these debts was guaranteed by
Roy and Pearson Thompson of Cheltenham,
esquire, to whom he conditionally assigened all his
interest in the estate. (fn. 13) In the summer of 1841 his
architect, Charles Stewart Duncan (probably a
relative) was applying to the Commissioners of
Sewers to lay sewers, (fn. 14) and he himself agreed to
lease twenty building plots to a speculator, Mark
Markwick of Worthing, esquire, who contracted
with a builder from the City of London, John
Jay, for the initial building of a range of ten
houses in carcase at a cost of £1,000 each. (fn. 15)

Jay laid the foundations for these ten houses,
but only completed five of them in carcase. These
are Nos. 67–75 (odd) Ladbroke Grove, situated
on the summit of the hill. They form a tall dull
range of five houses, five storeys in height over
basements, stucco-fronted at ground-floor level.
Each house has a substantial enclosed projecting
proch, also faced with stucco and furnished with
sets of paired pilasters.

The whole project was to be financed by
Duncan out of borrowed money, and in October
1841 he was obliged to provide Pearson Thompson
with further security for his debts. In June
1842 he was able to stave off disaster for a short
while by transferring the debt for £6,000 from
the bank to Edmund Walker, a Master in the
Court of Chancery. But in November 1842 Jay
became bankrupt after Duncan and Markwick
had failed to pay him the instalments due for his
building work, and in December Duncan himself
was also declared bankrupt. (fn. 16)

The parties possessing interests under Duncan's
original agreement with Ladbroke were now the
builder William Chadwick (to whom Duncan
was liable for debts previously incurred by Whyte
for building work at the Hippordrome), Walker,
Pearson Thompson, Roy, and the latter's remaining
partners, Duncan's own partnership having
been dissolved shortly before his bankruptey, (fn. 17)
when he owed his former partners over £45,000.
In order to extricate the whole speculation from
the financial difficulties created by Duncan's
collapse, and to get it moving, all these parties
agreed in November 1842 to appoint Pearson
Thompson as their trustee and Roy as the recipient
of all the building leases to be made by
Ladbroke for Duncan's lands; and Roy was to
hold all such leses upon trust for all parties
according to their respective interests. (fn. 18)(fn. 1).

In the following year, 1843, Chadwick sold
his interest in the westerly lands to Charles
Henry Blanke, esquire, of Devonshire Place. (fn. 21)
Blake was one of Roy's clients, and had recently
arrived in England from Calcutta. (fn. 22) He had lent
Roy's firm £10,000 (fn. 23) (probably in order to help
the partners out of the difficulties caused by
Duncan's debts to them of over £45,000), and
was later to be the largest and most successful
building speculator in the whole of North
Kensington. At this stage, however, he took no
active part in development. The interest which
he acquired from Chadwick consisted of a claim
for £4,100, or half the original debt of £8,200
incurred by Whyte to Chadwick, the other half
having been apportioned to Connop's lands to the
east. As the seventy-seven acres still nominally
in Duncan's possession provided ample security
for the recovery of this sum. Blake agreed to release
the southern portion from this encumbranace. (fn. 24)
This area (fig. 45) consisted of some sixteen acres
to the west of Ladbroke Grove and to the south
of the site of St. John's Church (later evidently
extended to the line of Lansdowne Rise). Control
of building development here was now vested in
Roy and Pearson Thompson, acting on behalf of
Edmund Walker and of Roy's partners as well as
of themselves, and it was under their management
that this part of the Ladbroke estate acquired
its highly distinctive character.

The Cheltenham Connexion

At the time of his death in 1872 Pearson Thompson
was described as the Marker of Cheltenham'.
His father, Henry Thompson, after accumulating
an ample fortune as a merchant and underwriter
in the City of London, had retired to Cheltenham
and bought the Montpellier estate, where medicinal
springs were shortly afterwards discovered.
His son, Pearson Thompson, had in early life
practised as a solicitor in London, but after
inheriting Henry Thompson's property in 1820
he removed to Cheltenham to develop the estate.
From c. 1824 onwards the employed J. B.
Papworth as his architect for both the layout of the
Montpellier estate and the design of the Montepellier
Purnp Room. Papworth also designed A
number of large houses in Thompson's wealthy
Lansdown district of Cheltenham, including one
for Richard Roy. Both Pearson Thompson and
Roy were members of the general committee for
the provision of fashionable public amusements
such as musical promenades and summer balls;
in 1836 they were both founder-directors of a
local joint-stock bank, and in the same year they
were working together in the Controversies surrounding
the promotion of railway lines to
Cheltenham. They were, in fact, experienced
and successful estate devlopers, willing, evidently,
to extend their field of operations to the
suburbs of London.

We have already seen that when Roy's partner,
Duncan, had needed capital in 1841 for his
operations on the Ladbroke estate, Roy and
Pearson Thompson had acquired a share in the
speculation by guaranteeing his promissory notes,
and at the time of his bankruptey they had taken
control. Pearson Thompson remained in Cheltenham,
his principal role being probably the provision
of capital, but Roy, whose residence in the
town may always have been restricted to the
fashionable 'season', gave up his house there in
1841–2. (fn. 25) From 1847 onwards he lived on the
Ladbroke estate. He subsequently served as a
Poor Law Guardian, as chairman of the commissioners
under the Kensington Improvement
Act of 1851, and as a vestryman.

The layout and general character of large parts
of the Ladbroke estate clearly owe a great deal to
the example of the Montpellier estate at Cheltenham.
The scale of the layount and the size of most
of the houses at Cheltenham are larger than on the
Ladbroke estate, but the alternation of curving
crescents with long straight roads, often lined
with trees, the large gardens and open spaces, the
mixture of house types and architectural styles,
and the careful siting of churches and large houses
at focal points all provide obvious similarities
between the two estates. The use of Lansdowne
(which Cheltenham had previously borrowed
from Bath) and Montpelier (fn. 2) as street-names in
Notting Hill even indicates an element of conscious
and deliberate imitation. How the basis of
these resemblances was created in the layout plan
of the Ladbroke estate must now be described.

The evolution of the layout plan

It is first of all clear that after the failure of his
'great circus' plan of 1823 Ladbroke's own surveyor,
Thomas Allason, ceased to be the sole
author of later layout plans. His approval of these
plans was, however, probably required, and he
may well have greatly influenced their preparation;
it is also likely that he provided designs for
a number of houses. Three features of his abortive
'great circur' plan certainly survived all lter
vicissitudes. These were, firstly, the large paddocks
or private enclosures for the communal use
of the residents of adjacent houses; secondly, his
crescent, curving round the western slopes of the
hill now surmounted by St. John's Church, an
idea which in much amplified form provided a
basic element in the executed layout of this part
of the Ladbroke estate; and thirdly, the straight
road (now Ladbroke Grove) which extended
northward from the Uxbridge road, up over the
hill and down the further side, and thus linked the
ends of the crescents.

After Ladbroke's signature of the two building
agreements with Connop and Duncan in 1840–1
Allason was, however, evidently no longer able to
dictate the layout, and this caused additional
complications. The straight course of Ladbroke
Grove might with advantage have been taken as
the dividing line between Connop's and Duncan's
properties, but this was not in fact done, and the
common border of their two leasehold properties
had followed the gentle curve of the boundary of
the Hippodrome (fig. 46). Thus when it was
decided to extend Ladbroke Grove straight north
in accordance with Allason's original plan,
Duncan had a narrow sliver of land on the east
side of the road and Connop an equally awkwardly
shaped piece on the west side further north.
Arrangements were eventually made to iron out
this difficulty by a mutual exchange, in order to
make Ladbroke Grove the boundary between
Duncan's land on the west and Connop's on the
east (fn. 26)(fn. 3) but the legal complications arising from
this lack of overall control continued to reverberate
until the early 1850's.

The next point to be noted about the layout of
the Ladbroke estate is the influence of J. B.
Papworth. We have already seen that after
Duncan's failure in 1842, control of the land to
the west of Ladbroke Grove passed to Pearson
Thompson and Richard Roy, who had both previously
employed Papworth at Cheltenham. There
is no direct evidence that Papworth ever worked
on the Ladbroke estate, but there are nevertheless
indications, both visual and documentary, that
his many-sided genius indirectly affected both the
layout and even the design of some of the houses
there. Bothe Allason and Robert Cantwell (whose
work on the Ladbroke estate has been mentioned
earlier) counted themselves among his admirers,
for they were among the group of architects which
presented Papworth with a silver inkstand at his
retirement in 1847. (fn. 28). Allason and Papworth had
both worked, either concurrently or consecutively,
for the Earl of Shrewsbury in the adornment of
the grounds at Alton Towers, (fn. 29) while the presence
among the Papworth drawings in the library of
the Royal Institute of British Architects of the
design, referred to earlier and evidently by
Cantwell, for a pair of houses in Ladbroke
Terrace very similar to a pair in Cheltenham,
suggests a professional association of some kind
between Papworth and Cantwell.

Most important of all, the influence of
Papworth is also revealed by the fact that after
the abandonment of Allason's 'great circus' plan,
the first revised scheme for the layout of the land
to the west of Ladbroke Grove was the work of
one of Papworth's pupils, James Thomson.
Thomson had entered Papworth's employment
in 1812, when he was only twelve years of age,
and in a memoir written may years later he
referred to his 'long residence' with Papworth. Whether his service extended to the years
covered by Papworth's work at Cheltenham
(c. 1824–32) is not clear, (fn. 30) for by 1826 he was
acting as executant architect under Nash for
Cumberland Terrace and Cumberland Place,
Regent's Park. (fn. 31) But Thomson's sense of personal
indebtedness to Papworth was certainly life-long,
for he too was one of the architects responsible for
the retirement presentation in 1847; (fn. 28) and the
full extent of Papworth's influence on his work
can be seen in Thomson's book, published in
1835 under the titile Retreats: A Seviers of Designs
consisting of Plans and Elevations for Cottages,
Villas and Ornamental Buildings.

Towards the end of 1842, when through
Duncan's financial failure Pearson Thompson
and Richard Roy were in need of an architect,
Papworth was aged sixty-seven and within five
years of retirement. After their brilliantly successful
previous association with him at Cheltenham,
to commission one of his former pupils (perhaps
on his recommendation) for a fresh project in
London was a natural step. However this may
be, there can certainly be on doubt that it was
Pearson Thomson and Roy who introduced
James Thomson to the Ladbroke estate, for a
posthumously published list of Thomson's works
includes the laying out of Mr. Roy's estate at
Notting hill'. (fn. 29)

In the autumn of 1842 Thomson was applying
on Roy's behalf to the Westminster Commissioners
of Sewers for permission to build
sewers in Queen's Terrace (later Hanover
Terrace, now Lansdowne Walk) and the west
side of Ladbroke Grove, (fn. 32) and a printed plan,
undated but not later than December 1842, is
entitled 'Plan of Kensington Park, Notting Hill,
as designed and laid out for building, with ornamental
grounds, public drives etc. etc. James
Thomson, Architect, Devonshire Street, Portland
Place' (Plate 54a). Although subsequently much
modified, this first plan does include the church
(sited near its eventual position), two conscentric
roads curving round the north-west slopes of the
hill to join Ladbroke Grove, and perhaps at
Allason's insistence, several of the 'paddocks' or
communal gradens which were to form such important
features of this area. All the houses on the
southern portion of the estate were to be built in
long terrace ranges, but further north there were
to be detached and paired houses as well as
terraces.

Thomson's plan for the lands to the west of
Ladbroke Grove was evidently prepared in consultation
with the architect for Jacob Connop's
lands to the east, whose layout proposals were
shown by Thomson in outline. This was Martin Joseph Stutely (d.1881), whose father Martin Stutely had worked as a builder on the Phillimore estate. (fn. 33)
He was probably the author of
a plan made at about this time for the erection
of some 330 houses, almost all in long terraced
ranges facing Ladbroke Grove and three streets
leading eastward to Portobello Lane, on the west
side of which there was to be a church. (fn. 34) This
undistinguished scheme included a perfunctory
attempt to provide a communal paddock, possibly
again at Allason's insistence, but by January 1843
Connop was employing a new architect, John
Stevens, (fn. 35), who was almost certainly the author of
the unsigned plan for Connop's lands reproduced
on Plate 54b.

Stevens had been a pupil of William Wilkins,
and in 1843 he was elected district surveyor for
the western part of the City. On the Ladbroke
estate he and his partner George Alexander
became architects in 1844 for St. John's Church,
and he also designed many houses' there. (fn. 29) His
plan for Connop's lands provided three large
squares extending eastward from Ladbroke Grove
to a new north-south line of communication, now
known as Kensington Park Road. The houses in
the two southerly squares, to be called Ladbroke
Square and Beaufort Square, were to be separated
in the traditional manner from the garden enclosure
by the roadway, and at the west end of
Beaufort Square there was to be a church fronting
Ladbroke Grove. But in the northernmost
square, to be called Lansdowne Square, the houses
were to back directly on to a communal garden
a feature evidently either insisted upon by Allason
or borrowed from Thomson. On the northern
slope of the hill there were to be fifteen detached
houses each with a large private garden, and long
ranges of terraced houses were to line the whole
length of the east side of Kensington Park Road,
one of whose functions appears to have been to
shut off Portobello Lane from contact with the
well-to-do inhabitants further west.

This plan must have been prepared in consultation
with Thomson, and possibly with Allason
also, for the positions of the openings into Ladbroke
Grove correspond with those on Thomson's
plan for the land to the west. But Stevens lacked
the experience of landscape and layout which
Thomson had acquired in Papworth's office and
in Regent's Park, and his scheme seems mean and
unimaginative in comparison. Fortunately, little
of it ever materialized, the plan being abandoned
after Connop's financial collapse in 1845 had
resulted in the division of his lands among several
speculators, who subsequently employed another
architect, Thomas Allom, to prepare a new plan
worthy of Thomson's example. Apart from the
idea of Ladbroke Square, and the long range of
houses along its south side (for the eastern half of
which Stevens probably supplied designs), and the
layout of Kensington Park Road, the northerly
line of which was altered in 1849, (fn. 36) little of
Stevens's work survives.

Figure 47:

Nos.2–8 consec. Lansdowne Walk, plans, elevations and details

Figure 48:

Nos. 12–26 even Clarendon Road, plans and elevations

Figure 49:

No. 20 Clarendon Road, details

His later commission to design St. John's
Church was probably the result of a compromise.
He and Thomson, presumably on the instructions
of their respective clients, had both provided a
church at focal points in their plans, the sites being
almost opposite to one another on either side of
Ladbroke Grove. But in the mid 1840's building
development on the west side of Ladbroke Grove
was advancing very rapidly under Richard Roy's
auspices, whereas on the east side it was bedevilled
by Connop's misfortunes (see below). It seems
not improbable, therefore, that an agreement was
reached whereby the church was built on the west
side, on the condition that Stevens should be its
architect.

This possibility is supported by the fact that
by 1844, when the building of St. John's Church
began, Thomson, whose claims to design the
church might otherwise have been paramount,
had, so far as is known, ceased to have any connexion
with the Ladbroke estate. His definitely
known connexion extends over a period of only
three months, from September to December
1842, during which he prepared the layout plan
already referred to (Plate 54a) and on Richard
Roy's behalf submitted two applications to the
Commissioners of Sewers for permission to lay
drains to two ranges of terrace houses. These
applications were for Queen's or Hanover
Terrace (now Nos. 1–6 consec. Lansdowne
Walk) which he is known from another source
to have designed, (fn. 29) and for Lansdowne Terrace
(now Nos. 37–61 odd Ladbroke Grove). (fn. 4) We
have already seen that Thomson had had experience of building terraces in Regent's Park, but the
failure at the end of 1842 of the twenty-house
range projected by Duncan, Markwick and Jay
at the top of the hilk may have prompted Roy and
Pearson Thomson to decide that the terraces
adumbrated on James Thomson's plan were not
the appropriate type of house to build on their
land. The only terraces in fact built under their
auspices were the two certainly designed by
Thomson in 1842 (Nos. 37–61 odd Ladbroke
Grove and 1–6 consec. Lansdowne Walk) and
two small ranges in Clarendon Road (Nos. 16–26
even and 31–39 odd), for which it is likely on
stylistic and other grounds that he suplied the
designs (Plate 60, figs. 47–9).

All four of these ranges, which were built
under leases of 1842–5 to William Reynolds
(see below), are of some distinction. Nos. 37–61
Ladbroke Grove have four storeys, but the other
three ranges are of three storeys, and all have
basements. All four ranges are faced with coursed
stucco at ground-floor level, but at Not. 16–26 Clarendon Road the stucco extends to the full
height. The upper windows of all four ranges have
stuccoed architraves and a crowning cornice,
also of stucco (now removed at Nos. 31–39
Clarendon Road). Nos. 37–61 Ladbroke Grove
(of which Nos. 37, 39 and 51–57 have been rebuilt
in recent years) are set back from the road
behind their own shared private enclosure. They
are stepped to match the steeply rising ground, and
the end houses are set slightly forward to give
added emphasis. At Nos. 1–6 Lansdowne Walk,
the most sophisticated group in this quartet, the
entrances are contained in projections which extend
to second-floor level, and the balconies of the
first-floor windows have simply detailed Grecian
cast-ironwork. The treatment of the return fronts
of the ranges in Ladbroke Grove and Clarendon
Road must also be mentioned as notable features
of Thomson's work. In Ladbroke Grove the
central bays at both ends have a double range of
plain pilasters surmounted by a pediment, all in
stucco, while at the north end of both ranges in
Clarendon Road the triumphal arch motif used to
link the slightly projecting chimney-stacks recalls
something of the scenic display of the terraces in
Regent's Park.

Figure 50:

No. 14 Clarendon Road, details

Apart from these four ranges, all the other
houses erected on Roy and Pearson Thompson's
land to the south of Lansdowne Rise were built
in pairs, with a few singles and trios. This change
in policy required a substantial modification of
Thomson's layout if the total number of houses
to be built was not to be greatly decreased; and as
it also corresponds in date with the end (so far as
is known) of Thomson's connexion with the
Ladbroke estate, and the appearance by March
1843 (fn. 38) of William Reynolds, builder or surveyor,
regularly acting on Roy's behalf, (fn. 39) it seems likely
that Reynolds, very probably in conjunction with
Allason, was responsible for the substantial
modifications which were now to be made to
Thomson's original scheme.

The two plans reproduced on Plate 55 show
successive strages in the evolution of these modifications.
The first is dated 1843, and the second may
probably be assigened to c. 1846; neither of them
bears the name of its author, although Reynolds's
name is mentioned on the second, and an incomplete manuscript version of the latter bears his
signature and the date, 1846. (fn. 40) The main object
of both plans was clearly to introduce more paired
houses instead of the long terraced ranges which
had predominated in Thomson's original design.
This was achieved by the removal of the site for
the church some two hundred feet southward in
order to make room at the top of the hill for a new
crescent (Lansdowne Crescent), and in the second
version, by the introduction of two additional
crescents on the lower, northern slopes of the hill.
The provision of paddocks or communal gardens
was also extended to most of the houses in the
area, possibly at Allason's instigation.

The likelihood that Reynolds, in conjunction
with Allason, was the author of the final executed
layout plan for the Ladbroke estate to the west of
Ladbroke Grove does not, however, reduce the
significance of Thomson's earlier scheme. It was
Thomson who first put Allason's original idea of
shared private enclosures into practical form, and
it was he who first propounded the idea of concentric
crescents skirting round the north-west
slopes of the hill. The success of these innovations
was later to be attested in the work of other architects,
notably Thomas Allom, to the east of
Ladbroke Grove, where in the 1850's and 1860's
the layout of Stanley Crescent and the formation
of five more private enclosures are both derivatives
of Thomson's work.

Development by Roy and Reynolds
west of Ladbroke Grove, 1842–6

Extensive building development on the lands to
the west of Ladbroke Grove began at the end of
1842, with Richard Roy in control as agent for
the parties with claims against Duncan. From his
office in Lothbury (where his firm also acted as
solicitors to the London and Westminster Bank,
a life insurance society and two railway companies) (fn. 41)
Roy was able to command the financial
resources needed for large-scale speculation. In
November 1842 he signed a building agreement
with Ladbroke for an additional three acres of
land between Pottery Lane and Portland Road, (fn. 42)
and within less than four years he had virtually
completed the development of a substantial part
of the area, extending as far north as Lansdowne
Rise and Lansdowne Crescent (fig. 45). Between
December 1842 and June 1846 he, as his clients'
nomince, was granted 147 building leases by
Ladbroke. These yielded a total annual income of
£1,127 in ground rents payable to Ladbroke. (fn. 43)
This revenue was considered to be enough to
secure the rent reserved in the original agreement
between Ladbroke and Duncan, and entitled Roy
to leases from Ladbroke of the remaining lands
to the north of Lansdowne Rise, which were
granted to him at peppercorn rents on 8 June
1846. (fn. 44)

The mechanics of the development which took
place to the south of Lansdowne Rise and
Lansdowne Crescent between 1842 and 1846
were extremely complicated, and owing to the
limitations of the evidence available, are not
altogether clear now. The man on the spot was
William Reynolds, a builder with a wharf on the
Regent's Canal near City Road, (fn. 45) who occupied
a house or office, first at No. 26 Ladbroke Grove
and then at No. 16 Clarendon Road. In 1845 he
was also acting in a supervisory capacity as a
surveyor in the layout of an estate at Southall. (fn. 46)
It was he who notified the district surveyor of
impending works on Roy's estated and who from
March 1843 onwards made application on Roy's
behalf to the Commissioners of Sewers for permission
to build new sewers in Clarendon Road,
Lansdowne Road, Lansdowne Walk, Lansdowne
Crescent and St. John's Gardens. Visual evidence
suggests that he also supplied the designs for many
of the houses which he built in these streets.

Reynolds's relations with Roy are obscure, but
basically it was Reynolds's job to organize the
building of the roads, sewers and houses, and
Roy's to organize a continuous supply of large
amounts of capital. The usual procedure was for
Roy, as soon as he received a building lease from
Ladbroke, to grant a sub-lease to Reynolds for the
full extent of his own term less about ten days,
but at about double the ground rent reserved to
Ladbroke. (fn. 47) This was done in at least 112 of
Roy's 147 leases from Ladbroke. Roy's profit
or rather, that of his clients—was thus safeguarded,
while Reynolds acquired a leasehold
interest on the security of which he could raise
capital for more building. This he did either by
mortgaging his sub-leases (usually for between
£500 and £800 per house) or by selling newly
completed houses for a lump sum. Occasionally
he granted twenty-one-year leases, at rents of
about £75 or £90 per year. (fn. 48) Reynolds's principal
mortgagee and purchaser was Joseph Blunt, one
of Roy's partners, whose other clients' need for
outlets for surplus capital probably kept him well
supplied with resources available for investment
in bricks and mortar. In all the deeds giving effect
to these devices, Reynolds's signature was almost
always witnessed by members of the staff of
Messrs. Roy, Blunt and Johnstone, which indicates
that it was through this firm that his
financial requirements were met. In at least one
case, indeed, that of G. H. Robins, auctioneer of
Covent Garden, to whom Reynolds owed £3,500,
the firm even undertook to guarantee repayment
of the debt. (fn. 49)

Many of the houses built by Reynolds have a
recognizable 'style' of their own, and may therefore
(as previously mentioned) have been designed
by him (Plate 63). Most of them are paired, with
two or three storeys and a basement, each individual
plot having a frontage of about 40 feet
and a depth of between 90 and 130 feet. Most
houses are faced with stucco at either ground-floor
level or throughout their whole height, and all
such features as doorways, balconies, windowarchitraves,
cornices and pediments are liberally
adorned with coarsely-detailed stucco dressings.
A robust coarseness is, indeed, the distinguishing
feature of Reynolds's work, as can be seen, for
instance, in many of his houses in Lansdowne
Road, where his Italianate detail (notably the
shell motifs above the first-floor windows at Nos.
15 and 17 and elsewhere) is in marked contrast
with the more restrained Grecian treatment
practised by Thomson.

There was plenty of variety in Reynolds's
work. In Lansdowne Walk, for instance, the pair
numbered 7 and 8 (fig. 47) has first-floor windows
framed by Corinthian pilasters and dentilled
cornices, and a modillioned cornice crowned by a
stucco balustrade, while Nos. 11 and 12 have
semi-circular headed windows and a bold enriched
cornice. All four of these houses, and many
others, have suffered by the partial or complete
removal of balconies, balustrades, cornices and
other ornamentation, or by the insensitive insertion
of extra windows, as, for instance, at Nos. 43
and 45 Clarendon Road. This unusual pair of
villas has a giant Corinthian order of stucco
pilasters carrying an entablature and pediment
(now pierced by a window) with a modillioned
cornice. Another nearby pair, Nos. 51 and 53
Clarendon Road, has triple-arched windows at
first-floor level and ill-proportioned Ionic proches.

A few of the houses leased to Reynolds are,
however, markedly different from those described
above, and may have been designed by someone
else. The quality of the ornamentation of the two
pairs numbered 37–43 (odd) Lansdowne Road
(Plate 63d), for instance, recalls Thomson's
manner rather than that attributed above to
Reynolds, while at Nos. 5–8 (consec.) and 13 and
14 Lansdowne Crescent squat Lombardic towers
are introduced—an early example of this genre,
which did not become generally fashionable until
the 1850's. The fact previously noted that
Reynolds was the lessee for the four ranges designed
by Thomson shows that he did not always
himself design the houses which he built, and one
or two other architects besides Thomson may well
therefore have been involved in his building work.

The only other builders to whom Roy granted
sub-leases besides Reynolds were Joshua Higgs,
senior and junior, of Davies Street, Mayfair, the
builders of St. John's Church, for the adjoining
Nos. 2–4 (consec.) Lansdowne Crescent and
63 Ladbroke Grove; (fn. 50) Frederick Woods and
William Wheeler of Notting Hill, for Nos.
16–30 (even) Lansdowne Road; (fn. 51) Samuel Clothier
of St. Pancras, marble mason, for Nos. 14
Lansdowne Road and 14 Lansdowne Walk; (fn. 52)
and J. H. Nail, appraiser, for a number of small
houses in the vicinity of Pottery Lane. (fn. 53) Nos.
2–4 Lansdowne Crescent and 63 Ladbroke Grove,
two pairs, one in the Gothic manner appropriate
to their situation beside the church, and the other
having steeply pitched gables, do not resemble any
other houses in the area under discussion, and
were probably designed by the Higgs. Four of the
eight houses leased to Woods and Wheeler in
Lansdowne Road have the same stucco Corinthian
pilasters at first-and second-floor level as Reynolds
used opposite at No. 9 Lansdowne Road, and
were probably designed by Reynolds, as also was
the pair at the corner of Lansdowne Road and
Walk (Plate 63e, 63f), where the lease to the marble
mason Clothier may have been granted at Reynolds's
request in settlement of a debt.

The census of 1851 provides detailed information
about the people then living in the houses
built under the auspices of Roy and Reynolds.
The returns for the forty houses in Lansdowne
Road now numbered 2–44 (even) and 9–43 (odd)
show that two houses were empty and two others
occupied by caretakers. In the remaining thirty-six
houses there were 273 residents, of whom 90
were servants. The average number of residents
in each house was thus c. 7–6, of whom 2–5 were
servants. The householders included eleven fundholders or landed proprietors, five merchants, three
lawyers, two army officers (both in the East
India Company's service), two coach-builders,
two civil engineers, and one surgeon (with four
resident patients), one commercial clerk and one
iron and tin manufacturer. Three houses were
used as girls' schools, with a total resident staff
of nine mistresses.

In Lansdowne Crescent twenty houses were
occupied by 133 residents, of whom 53 were servants.
The average number of residents in each
house was thus 6–6, of whom 2–6 were servants.
The householders included three fundholders (all
women), three lawyers (one a magistrate), two
army officers, two civil servants, and one clergyman,
chemist, dealer in stocks and shares, parliamentary agent, wholesale bookseller, warehouseman,
varnish maker and merchant.

The most remarkable feature of the development
of this area was the creation of five communal
gardens, four of them at the rear of the
houses on either side of Lansdowne Road, and the
fifth at the rear of the houses on the inner side
of Lansdowne Crescent. Each house had a small
private garden for its occupants' own exclusive
use, and these gardens provided access at the rear
to a much larger paddock, which was to be shared
by all the inhabitants of the houses backing on to
it. The five paddocks comprised over five acres
of land, and only the houses on the west side of
Clarendon Road and the south side of Lansdowne
Walk, where the outer boundaries of Roy's land
prevented such an extended layout, did not enjoy
this precious amenity of suburban living.

Each paddock was leased by Ladbroke to Roy
as part of the curtilage of one of the houses
abutting on to it. The first to be so leased, in
March 1844, was the garden behind the houses
in Lansdowne Crescent, and here the paddock
was included in the lease of No. 9. (fn. 54) When Roy
granted sub-leases of the houses (usually to
Reynolds), he covenanted to lay out the paddock
'for the convenience and recreation of the tenants
and occupiers', and granted them the right to use
the garden and 'to walk and demean in and upon
the same premises in manner customary in enclosed
pleasure or ornamental garden grounds in
Squares and other like places in London', provided
that 'none of the Livery or other servants . . .
save and except the domestic servants in actual
attendance on the Children or other members of
the family' should be permitted to enter. (fn. 54) In his
sub-leases Roy reserved to himself an annual
garden rent ranging from one to three guineas
on each house, (fn. 55) and in return he covenanted to
maintain the garden at his own cost for the whole
of his leasehold term. (fn. 54) In later years Roy bought
the freehold of may of the houses from the
Ladbroke family, and later still, sold many of
these freeholds subject to the existing underleases.
These sales included a right to use the
appropriate paddock, but the soil itself was
exculded. The purchasers, not wishing to undertake
the maintenance of the five gardens, converyed
the garden rents back to Roy, who thus
retained his responsibility for maintenance for
the remainder of the original leasehold term. In
the case of the Lansdowne Crescent paddock,
Roy's heirs in 1910 leased the garden rentcharges
for one hundred years to trustees acting on
behalf of a committee of the inhabitants. The
rent-charges are still paid, supplemented by a
voluntary additional payment to meet rising
costs. (fn. 56)

The following table of leases granted by
Ladbroke to Roy between December 1842 and
June 1846 shows the gatering momentum of
building. (fn. 43)

1842

8 leases

1843

11

1844

23

1845

52

1846

53

Total

147

Besides the houses there were also the roads
and sewers to be built, the total length of sewers
for which Reynolds obtained building permission
from the Commissioners amounting to some
8400 feet. The steeply sloping ground presented
problems, and in the northern part of Lansdowne
Crescent a great mass of clay twenty feet in depth
which had been deposited on the turf to make the
road slid down the hill, destroying vaults and
sewers. (fn. 57) And finally there was the church itself
(Plate 12), that important adjunct of a successful
suburban building speculation, which was built
on the summit of the hill on the west side of
Ladbroke Grove, but where it could also form a
total point for Connop's estate on the other side
of the road. At the time of the consecration of the
church, on 29 January 1845, The Builder commented
that 'an entirely new neighbourhood has
grown up in this quarter "like an exhalation". (fn. 58)

During the hectic three and a half years from
December 1842 to June 1846 some £12,000
must have been invested in Roy's estate (fn. 5). Almost
all, or perhaps all of this money was channelled
to Reynolds through the firm of Roy, Blunt and
Johnstone, either directly by Blunt or indirectly
by one of the firm's clients with money available
for investment. The case of one of these clients,
Viscount Canning, was probably typical of a
dozen others. In 1843 he had lent £2,000 to the
trustees for building St. John's Church. (fn. 59) He had
also lent to Reynolds, who in 1846 owed him
£3,500 (later increased to £8,200) for monies
lent and advanced or paid for his [Reynolds's]
account by the hands of Messierus Roy, Blunt and
Johnstone, the solicitors of the said Viscount
Canning'. This loan was at first secured only by
the deposit in the firm's custody of six of Roy's
sub-leases to Reynolds, but by the end of 1846,
when the boom in railway shares was rapidly
mounting, money was becoming hard to find and
Reynolds agreed that if Lord Canning should
require him to do so, he would execute a mortgage
which should include 'a power of sale'. (fn. 60)

By this time Roy himself had been compelled
to make heavy mortgages of his leases from
Ladbroke (subject of course to Reynolds's underleases)
probably to his own clients, (fn. 61) and some of
the existing mortgagees were calling in the money
which they had advanced to Reynolds. In May
1846 Reynolds was able to transfer some of these
mortgages to the Sovereign Life Assurance
Company, (fn. 62) but by October he had to sell some
of his under-leases to his mortgagees, (fn. 63) and even
to resort to a loan of £7,000 limited to six months'
duration from a group of City magnates. These
were the two great bill dealers, Samuel Gurney,
of Overend and Gurney, and James Alexander of
Alexander and Company, plus Sir Moses Montefiore
and Lionel Nathan de Rothschild. (fn. 64) In
December this formidable quartet was willing to
take over the mortgages made by the Sovereign
Life, (fn. 65) but the repayment of the loan in April
1847 evidently exhausted Reynolds's resources
and after the Sun Insurance Office had refused
his request for a loan of £20,000 (fn. 66) a judgment for
debt was entered against him in May. (fn. 67) Throughout
the summer of 1847, when there were
numerous mercantile failures in the City, he was
still able to find purchasers for his under-leases
through Roy, Blunt and Johnstone, (fn. 68) but in the
autumn, when the Bank Charter Act was suspended,
there were two more judgements for debt
against him. (fn. 69) It was at about this time that his
connexion with Roy, Blunt and Johnstone came
to an end, and the firm itself split. Blunt, who had
supplied so much of Reynolds's capital, appropriately
became solicitor to the Royal Mint,
Johnstone became clerk to the Patent Office,
while Roy, who now lived at No. 59 Ladbroke
Grove, remained in command in Lothbury. (fn. 41)
Reynolds himself was not so fortunate, for in
February 1848 he was declared bankrupt. (fn. 70) But
this was not quite the end of him, for within less
than eighteen months he was building houses
again on the east side of Ladbroke Grove, and
sewers in the northern part of Clarendon Road
and in Blenheim Crescent. (fn. 71) He died intestate in
1850. (fn. 72)

For Pearson Thompson, from whom presumably
had emanated the original idea of forming
a 'little Cheltenham' at Notting Hill, the outcome
was different. His investment on the Ladbroke
estate had 'so involved his affairs as to compromise
the whole of his property', and in 1849 he emigrated
to Australia. After practising at the bar in
Sydney for a while, he removed to Castlemaine,
the centre of a large goldmining district, where he
practised very successfully and later became a
magistrate. He died there in 1872. (fn. 73)

Development by Connop east of
Ladbroke Grove, 1841–5

To the east of Ladbroke Grove the progress of
building had meanwhile been very much slower.
There Connop was deeply involved in Duncan's
financial difficulties; (fn. 74) like Duncan he was indebted
to the builder William Chadwick for work
done at the Hippodrome racecourse, (fn. 75) and through
his activities in the City as a bill broker he also,
in March 1842, owed nearly £12,000 on unpaid
bills of exchange to William Sloane, (fn. 76) a gentleman
who had made a fortune in Bengal as an indigo
planter. (fn. 77) Connop urgently needed capital to get
his building speculation moving, and in August
1841 C. H. Blake (see page 221), then still in
Calcutta, agreed to purchase the improved
ground rents of nine houses (where completed) for
£6,750. (fn. 78) Blake seems, however, to have withdrawn
from this risky project, and it was Connop's
solicitor, William Parkin of Chancery Lane, (fn. 79)
who persuaded a relative, Henry Parkin, a
physician living in Torquay, to provide urgently
needed backing. Henry Parkin agreed to buy at
fifteen years' purchase the improved ground rents
of eleven houses to be erected by Connop, and by
February 1842 he had advanced £4,000 to
Connop for this purpose, a debt which two years
later had risen to £10,000. The security for all
these and other debts was Connop's agreement
with Ladbroke, but in July 1842 there were still
no houses, Connop 'not being able to induce any
person to undertake to build'. (fn. 80)

In the following month, however, he agreed
to grant leases of five plots on the south side of
Ladbroke Square (Nos. 23–27 consec.) to
William Gribble, a St. Marylebone builder, and
building began at last, Gribble's capital being
supplied by C. H. Grove, another lawyer of
Chancery Lane. (fn. 81) By October he had induced
another builder, W. J. Wells of Islington, to take
four more plots in Ladbroke Square (Nos. 28–31), (fn. 82) but misfortune was never far away, for in
November he had to execute yet another mortgage of his lands, to his architect's father, Martin Stutely,
for £7,400 due on unpaid bills of exchange; (fn. 84)
and in January 1843 some 220 feet of the sewer
which he was himself laying in Ladbroke Square
collapsed. (fn. 84)

By June 1843 building was sufficiently advanced
for Ladbroke to grant, at Connop's
request, ninety-seven-year leases of twelve houses
in Ladbroke Square (Nos. 23–27 and 31–37
consec.), two on the east side of Kensington Park
Road (Nos. 44 and 46, now demolished) and five
on the east side of Ladbroke Grove at the top of
the hill (Nos. 42–50 even), all to William
Parking. (fn. 85) John Stevens, who by this time had
superseded Stuteley as Connop's architect, was a
party in one of the transactions relating to Nos.
31–37 Ladbroke Square, (fn. 86) and he may therefore
have been the designer of this range. The houses
in Ladbroke Grove were certainly not yet finished,
for seventeen months later they were still in
carcase, (fn. 87) and in October 1845 they (Nos. 42–50) together with Nos. 52–58 Ladbroke Grove
were re-leased by Ladbroke to John Brown of
St. Marylebone, builder. (fn. 88) Soon afterwards
Brown mortaged these houses to Ladbroke's
solicitors, Bayley and Janson, (fn. 89) which suggests
that Ladbroke or his agents were by the provision
of capital trying to get development moving.

The houses in the range in Ladbroke Square
between Ladbroke Terrace and Kensington Park
Road (Plate 61e) are of the conventionally
planned terrace type, but have spacious accommodation,
being some twenty feet in width on
average. Nos. 42–58 (even) Ladbroke Grove,
by Brown, are large paired villas, with the exception
of Nos. 50 which is detached, and are built of
stock brick with stucco enrichments. The pair
numbered 42 and 44 is an eclectic design, having
a symmetrical façade of three storeys over a
basement, with a small pedimented attic storey
in the centre. The front is enlivened with stucco
pilasters, architraves, balustrades, porch and large
main cornice carried on console brackets.

The grant of leases in June 1843 (referred to
above) had probably been an attempt by Connop
to provide additional security for his creditors, for
he was by then already being closely pressed, and
by the end of 1843 two court judgments had been
delivered against him for unpaid debts. (fn. 90) Soon
afterwards Brown was granted leases of Nos.
20–22 (consec.) Ladbroke Square, (fn. 91) and William
Parkin of three villas, Nos. 48–52 (even)
Kensington Park Road (now demolished), (fn. 92)
Parkin being also nominated as the intended
lessee of Nos. 38–46 Ladbroke Square. (fn. 93) But
the two Parkings were now in their turn in
financial difficulty, and in June 1844 they mortgaged
their interest in Connop's lands for
£8,000. (fn. 94) Connop himself was evidently no
longer credit-worthy, and in January 1845 a
receiver was appointed to administer his estate. (fn. 95)

Development by Chadwick in
Ladbroke and Kensington
Park Roads, 1840–52

By this time doubts had again arisen, as in 1832,
about the validity of the leasehold titles created
by Ladbroke, and in 1844 a third Act of Parliament
had been obtained. In addition to the two
contracts of 1840–1 with Connop and Duncan,
Ladbroke had also signed three other agreements—one with William Chadwick in 1840 for the
development of land around the intersection of
Ladbroke Road and Kensington Park Road, one
already mentioned with Richard Roy in 1842 for
some three acres between Pottery Lane and
Portland Road, and one in 1844 with William
Henry Jenkins, a civil engineer, for twenty-eight
acres around Pembridge Villas (see Chapter X).
All these agreements were now confirmed, and
Ladbroke was also empowered to accept surrenders
of existing leasehold interests, to grant new leases
where necessary, to vary the existing agreements
by mutual agreement, particularly as to the maximum
numbers of houses to be built, and to sell
land for the site of a church. (fn. 96) The fact that these
and other amendments were needed suggests that
Ladbroke and his advisers, Allason (surveyor)
and Bayley and Janson (lawyers), had not been
very efficient in their management of the estate.

William Chadwick had been active in building
on the Trinity House estate in Southwark in the
1820's, (fn. 97) and was now in the City, where he
described himself as an architect and/or builder. (fn. 98)
Between 1832 and 1837 he had been the contractor
at Kensal Green Cemetery for the building
of the two chapels there and the boundary
wall. He had been drawn into the Ladbroke
estate through his employment by Whyte in the
erection of fences and stables at the Hippodrome,
and his unpaid account for this work, amounting
to some £8,200, had been secured by a lien on the
lands contracted by Ladbroke to Connop and
Duncan in 1840–1. (fn. 99) He was evidently a man of
caution and experience, for in his agreement with
Ladbroke he only contracted for some seven
acres (fig. 45), (fn. 100) at an initial rent of £104 rising
in the fourth and all succeeding years to £113
(equivalent to £16 per acre), and he only undertook
to spend £4,000 in building. (fn. 96)

Most of Chadwick's work on the Ladbroke
estate consists of well-proportioned and regular
terrace houses simply dressed with stucco, and
provides a marked contrast with the loosely
spreading Italianate façades of his contemporary,
William Reynolds. He began, as speculators often
did, by building a public house, the Prince
Albert, at the junction of Kensington Park Road
and Ladbroke Road, of which he was granted a
lease by Ladbroke in 1841. (fn. 101) By 1848 he had
built nine houses in Ladbroke Road—Nos. 1–11
(odd) on the south side (Nos. 9 and 11, Plate 61a,
being a large pair of stucco-faced villas with
pilasters and a grand cornice supported on huge
brackets) and Nos. 14–18 (even) on the north,
the latter adjoining Horbury Mews, which was
formed many years later (in 1877) on the site of
a nurseryman's grounds. (fn. 102) No. 14 is a large
pedimented three-storey villa with two-storey
wings, and has a frontage of seventy-five feet,
while Nos. 16 and 18 form a pair of Italianate
houses with pediments over the ground-floor
windows, a bracketed cornice, and semi-circular
headed windows above trabeated doorways (Plate
61b, 61d). On the east side of Kensington Park
Road he had completed another six houses, of
which Nos. 32–38 even (four-storey paired villas
with stucco fronts) survive, (fn. 103) plus twelve small
terrace houses on the west side of Pembridge
Road (Nos. 13–33 odd Pembridge Road and
2 Kensington Park Road). (fn. 104)

The ground rents arising on these houses were
enough to secure Ladbroke's interest, and in
May 1848 Felix Ladbroke granted Chadwick a
lease of most of the remaining land at a peppercorn
rent, (fn. 105) the plot at the corner of Kensington
Park Road and Ladbroke Road being reserved for
a Congregational chapel. This was Horbury
Chapel (now Kensington Temple, Plate 28b),
designed by J. Tarring and built in 1848–9 by
T. and W. Piper. (fn. 106)

Chadwick's business was large enough for him
to employ his own clerk of works, (fn. 107) and in 1848
he began to grant leases to other builders, notably
to George Stevenson for Nos. 13–19 (odd)
Ladbroke Road, a group of houses which avoids
the monotony of the terrace which it in fact is by
having the entrances set in smaller and lower elements
as in St. James's Gardens on the Norland
estate and elsewhere. Chadwick's own later
building included a range of small houses, models
of simple stock-brick terraces, with stucco architraves,
and some with shops on the ground floor,
at the apex of Kensington Park Road (Nos. 2–30
even), and more similar development in Pembridge
Road (Nos. 35–59 odd), the latter extending
round into Portobello Lane (the Sun in Splendour
public house and Nos. 9–13 odd), all of which
was substantially complete by the time of his
death in 1852. (fn. 108) The building of Horbury
Crescent and Nos. 2–10 (even) Ladbroke Road
was begun in 1855 by his heir, W. W. Chadwick,
for whom a local builder, John D. Cowland,
acted as contractor in the building of sewers. (fn. 109)
The long three-storey range of Nos. 21–55
Ladbroke Road, notable for not having basements,
was built by William Wheeler under leases granted
by W. W. Chadwick in 1833–4 (Plate 61c).

Development by Drew in
Ladbroke Road, 1840–5

One other portion of the Ladbroke estate developed before 1847 remains to be described
the area to the north of Adams's speculation of
1826–31 along the Uxbridge road, extending
westward from Ladbroke Grove to Portland
Road, and bounded on the north by Roy's holding
(fig. 45). The developer here was William
John Drew, variously described as builder or
architect and doubtless a relative of John Drew
of Pimlico, builder, who together had built Nos.
11–19 (odd) Ladbroke Grove (fig.51), beginning
in 1833. No agreement between Ladbroke and
W. J. Drew has been found, but between 1839
and 1845 Drew or his nominees were granted
leases of all the ground in this area. The fifty or
more houses which were built here have a style
of their own quite distinct from the work (previously discussed) of Cantwell, Adams, Thomson,
Reynolds or Chadwick, and there is some reason
to think that Ladbroke's surveyor, Allason, may
have been responsible for their design (Plate 62).

After the completion of Nos. 11–19 Ladbroke
Grove in about 1838 W. J. Drew had built a
similar range of small two-storey stucco-fronted
houses in the Grecian manner at Nos. 1–11 (odd)
Clarendon Road (now demolished), under leases
granted by Ladbroke in 1840–1 (fn. 110) (Plate 62a).
Drew's mortgagee for part of this range was
Allason, (fn. 111) and in 1843 Drew was mortgaging
other houses in the area to Ladbroke's solicitor,
R. R. Bayley. (fn. 112) It may therefore be that Ladbroke
and his agents involved themselves more
actively in the development of this part of the
estate that was the case elsewhere.

The two characteristic features to be found in
most of the houses with which Drew was connected,
namely the use, firstly, of vertical strips
of stucco, which appear as pilasters with the
minimum of mouldings, and extending through
two or sometimes even three storeys, and secondly,
of semi-circular bowed projections, had both previously
been used by Allason in 1827 for his own
house. This was Linden Lodge in Linden Grove
(now demolished, see page 269), a large twostorey
stucco-fronted detached house having
simplified pilasters extending through the full
height of a central bowed projection (Plate 73a).
On the main portion of the Ladbroke estate the
first examples of the use of pilasters by Drew are to be seen at Not. 21 and 23 Ladbroke Grove,
leased to him in 1839–40, (fn. 113) and at Nos. 25–35
Ladbroke Grovre, leased also in 1839–40 to
Drew's nominee. Francis Read of Pimlico,
builder. (fn. 114) This terrace (Plate 62b, fig. 52) is
arranged as a series of linked pairs of houses, each
of three storeys above a basement, their stucco
façades being furnished with slender pilasters.
These pilasters unite the ground and first floors
beneath a continuous dentil entablature, whilst
the upper storey is given an attic order, surmounted
in turn by shallow eaves to the lowhipped
slate roofs. The façades, each two windows
wide in the main face, break back slightly in the
linking parts where entrance doors are set within
Roman Doric porches.

Figure 51:

Not. 11–19 odd Ladbroke Grove, elevations and site plan

The houses (mostly paired) in the stretch of
Ladbroke Road between Ladbroke Grove and
Landsdowne Road, for which Drew was the lessee
between 1841 and 1845, have characteristic
vertical stucco strips, as well as bowed projections
(now often obscured by later additions) at the side
or rear. So, too, have Nos. 2–12 (even) Lansdowne
Road, of which he was granted leases in
1843 (fn. 115) (Plate 62d, fig. 53). The latter form
three pairs of two-storey houses with basements
and attics. Here the giant stucco strips support
large consoles which carry wide overhanging
caves. Generally there are three rooms on the
main floors, and the bowed projections of the large
rear rooms overlook spacious gardens. These
houses are faced by Nos. 1–5 (odd) Lansdowne
Road, three large detached villas where, exceptionally,
neither pilasters nor bows are used. These
were leased in 1845 at Drew's direction to his
nominee, William Liddard of Notting Hill, gentleman,
and have stucon architraves, stringcourses and
enriched cornices carried on ornate consoles. (fn. 116)

The possibility that Allason may have provided
designs for Drew is further supported by
the evidence of a group of houses further west.
On the west side of Clarendon Road Drew was
the lessee in 1840 for Nos. 13 and 15 (a stuccofronted
pair with pilasters) (fn. 117) and in 1845 Nos.
17–29 (odd) were leased to his nominees,
Liddard for Nos. 17–21 (a plain stuccoed range
of three houses) and Allason himself for Nos.
23–29 (fn. 118) (Plate 62c). The latter form a short
range of narrow terraced houses unique at this
period in the development of the Ladbroke estate
in having semi-circular projecting bows extending
up through the full height of the fronts, three
storeys over basements, much in the manner then
fashionable at seaside resorts such as Brighton. (fn. 6)
At the time of his death in 1852 Allason owned
the freehold of all of these nine houses. (fn. 119)

Figure 52:

Nos. 21–35 odd Ladbroke Grove, plans, elevations and details

Figure 53:

Nos. 6 and 8 Lansdowne Road, plans, elevation, section and details

Opposite, on the east side of Clarendon Road,
Allason was also in 1845, at Drew's nomination,
the lessee for Nos. 12 and 14 Clarendon Road
(Plate 62e, fig. 50) and for the contiguous Nos.
80–86 (even) Ladbroke Road. (fn. 120) These six
houses consist of three substantial pairs, all of
three storeys over basements, and all with stucco
strips rising from the ground floor to support an
entablature surmounted by a panelled parapet.
Nos. 12 and 14 Clarendon Road have shallow
bowed fronts, and the doorways are set back on
the flanks. Unmistakably related to this pair is
the much larger and slightly later group at Nos.
1–3 (consec.) Kensington Park Gardens, where
Allason and Drew were also both involved (fn. 121)
(Plate 62f). At Nos. 80–86 Ladbroke Road there
are paired porches projecting from the centres of
the symmetrical fronts. All six houses have bowed
projections at the rear. At his death Allason owned
the freehold of these six houses, (fn. 119) and it may very
well be that he had been their architect.

Drew occupied a house at the south-east corner
of Ladbroke Grove and Ladbroke Road, where
Notting Hill Police Station now stands. (fn. 122)
Although he lived until 1878, he is not known to
have built any houses in Kensington after 1851
(the year before Allason died). After his death his
personal estate was valued at around £12,000. (fn. 123)
His son, George Drew, was an architect, who was
responsible for Nos. 95–109 (odd) Ladbroke
Grove in 1864, but he had been still a child at the
time of the building of the houses discussed above.

Reorganisation east of
Ladbroke Grove, and death of
J. W. Ladbroke, 1846–7

After Connop's bankruptcy in 1845 it was clear
that the development of his lands to the east of
Ladbroke Grove would not get under way without
the intervention of the ground landlord. In
April 1846, therefore, all the parties having
claims on Connop's lands surrendered their
various interests to Ladbroke to enable him to
enter into new building agreements. (fn. 124) Within a
week Ladbroke signed new contracts with four
of the claimants for some fifty of Connop's
original fifty-eight acres, and undertook to grant
ninety-four-year leases from Michaelmas 1845.
The whole area was divided up substantially in
accordance with the plan (probably) prepared for
Connop by Stevens (Plate 54b), now modified to
harmonize with more recent alterations to the
ground plan of the lands west of Ladbroke Grove.
Connop's previous architect's Martin Stutely (now
also described as a trustee of the Norwich Union
Reversionary Interest Company), took twelve
acres now the site of Ladbroke Square, at a rent
of c. £24. per acre; (fn. 125) William Sloane took nine
acres of the best land at the top of the hill, now
the site of Kensington Park Gardens and Stanley
Gardens, at a rent of c. £30 per acre; (fn. 126) James
Whitchurch, a speculator already heavily engaged
outside the Ladbroke estate in the vicinity of
Walmer Road, took three acres of the least
eligible land at the northern extremity of Ladbroke's
estate at a rent of c. £3 per acre; (fn. 127) and
George Penson, a cheesemonger of NewgateStreet,
took the remaining twenty-six acres at a rent
of c. £10 per acre. (fn. 128) The thin sliver of what had
originally been Duncan's land on the east side of
Ladbroke Grove was excluded from this new
division.

The onset of the financial crisis of 1847 prevented
these new developers from making any
rapid progress in building, and on 16 March 1847
James Weller Ladbroke died at his house at
Petworth, Sussex. (fn. 77) At the time of his death the
Notting Hill estate (excluding the Pembridge
Villas portion) yielded an annual revenue of some
£3,000 in ground rents. (fn. 130) His heir, a distant
cousin, Felix Ladbroke of Headley, Surrey, now
possessed an absolute title to the estate, and was
therefore able to sell the freehold if he so desired.
He had been planning against the day of his
cousin's death, for he at once transferred the
administration of the estate from Bayley and
Janson to his own solicitors, Western and Sons, (fn. 77)
and within a fortnight of James Weller Ladbroke's
death, he sold the freehold of ten houses on the
south side of Ladbroke Square (Nos. 38–47
consec.), (fn. 131) and the twenty-nine acres of land
which J. W. Ladbroke had agreed in 1846 to
lease to Whitchurch and Penson. The purchaser of
the houses and three acres of the land was Thomas
Pocock, an attorney of Bartholomew Close in the
City; the other twenty-six acres of land were
bought by Brooke Edward Bridges, a Bedfordshire
clergyman, for whom Pocock acted as
solicitor. (fn. 132)

The next phase in the development of the
Ladbroke estate, from 1846–7 onwards, was thus
conducted under very different auspices from the
earlier phase. With a ground landlord now in
possession who was able and often willing to sell
in fee simple, the break-up of the estate had begun,
and a new generation of developers appeared, the
solicitor Roy being the only significant active
survivor from the earlier years.

Footnotes

1. Jay's range of five houses was completed in 1844–5 under Roy's auspices by the building of a substantial house at either
end, one facing north and the other south, the builder being William Reynolds.43. Both these end houses were subsequently
demolished for the erection of blocks of flats, that at the south end (No. 65) being built in 1938 to designs by E. Maxwell Fry.44

3. This exchange was arranged by Edward Cresy, architect, who in February 1841 was acting on behalf of both
Duncan and Connop. This is the only known occasion on which Cresy was concerned with the Ladbroke estate.

4. Lansdowne Terrace was originally intended to have consisted of seventeen houses, but when the church-with was
finally settled a little later the four nothernmost houses were deleted from the plan in order to provide sufficient space for it.

5. For this very rough calculation the average cost of the 147 houses build has been assumed to be £750, and the average
cost of building 2400 feet of servers has been taken 2415 stillings per foot. This gives £116,550, to which must be added
an allowance for the cost of road building.

6. It is perhaps worth noting that Allason's own country house was at Ramsgate, where he was surveyor to one of the
principal estates.141